York police name victim, charge man in afternoon shooting

Police are investigating a shooting in the 100 block of Hamilton Ave. York City Police Chief Wes Kahley said one person was shot. (Daily Record/Sunday News -- Hannah Sawyer)

After a Thursday afternoon shooting that sent one man to the hospital, residents of the Hamilton Avenue area of York city said there had been multiple incidents of shots fired in the neighborhood over the last week.

York City Police responded to the shooting at about 1:15 p.m. and found Dontay Lowrie with multiple gunshot wounds in the 300 block of North Beaver Street, according to a news release.

The victim was in serious condition at York Hospital on Thursday afternoon, Capt. Tim Utley said.

Officers cordoned off sections of the 100 block of Hamilton and Stevens Avenue and were seen removing a gun from the street on Hamilton Avenue.

After executing two search warrants, police took Juan Abel Santiago, 20, into custody in connection with the shooting. Officers found a sawed-off shotgun, a .32 revolver, ammunition and other ballistic evidence during the execution of their search warrants, the release states.

Sonya Cottle, who lives in the 100 block of Hamilton Avenue and whose home was hit by gunfire, said that this shooting was just one in a series of similar incidents. There were shots fired in the neighborhood last Friday and again on Monday, and neighbor Tori Holcomb said police were called to the block as recently as 3:30 a.m. Thursday because of gunshots. “It's becoming quite regular,” said Cottle, who has lived on the street for about 20 years.

Police laid out numerous evidence markers throughout the block — many of them in a side yard next to Cottle's home. She said that people use her yard, and others in the neighborhood that aren't fenced, as a throughway.

“No Trespassing” and “Private Property” signs dot front lawns in the neighborhood, including Cottle's own, but it isn't much of a deterrent, she said. She and her husband won't be able to afford to fence the area this year.

When Ruth Holcomb, grandmother of Tori Holcomb, moved to the block 25 years ago, it was a quiet neighborhood, she said. To see it “getting worse” is upsetting.

There have been three homicides within a two block radius since 2007 — one of those in the 100 block of Hamilton Avenue in 2008, according to the Daily Record/Sunday News homicide map.

But despite Cottle's growing concerns, she said moving isn't an option. She lives with her husband, daughter and grandson and rents out an attached home next door.

“It's not like we can just say, ‘Hey, we're getting out of this neighborhood,” she said.